Nothing stops time from passing and soon enough in our short lives somehow we begin to think 'I am too old to learn that. one special thing I have always want to learn'

What would happen if for a short period of time you through out that old and dated belief and just tackled learning something new, simply for the joy of it. Throw out the idea that you have to be perfect at it. Throw out the idea that you have to have the absolute best equipment before you start. I know from my own experience since I have a few closets full of some of 'the best stuff I needed to get started'  and never got started anyway.

In my journey I have discovered that connecting to the joy of learning, the beginner mind and simply being curious are often the best starting places. I have more fun and connect to the learning easier when I am dabbling then when I have all of the fancy tools. I am convinced this happens because I have removed the limitation of perfection.  When I accept I do not need to be perfect than the joyful pursuit of learning my new task and digging deeper is less daunting. 

So dig out the paints, the wood carving tools, the knitting needles, the cook book, the gardening tools, the figure skates, the writing notebook and just get started. A year from now you will be delighted with the experiences you have had and the fun you have had along the way.             Terry Mack, Living Life Creatively, Coach and Catalyst

Every day Creativity.
It is Sunday, January 22 and I have declared today to be Domestic Day – fun in the kitchen and fun with some of the routine chores that need doing. 

I love domestic day. I become deeply connected to the essentials of day to day living in my own space and within my own being. I am excited that I am creating my life. Today for example I decided to make a soup that I have never made before, Bean with Bacon Soup. There is something deeply beautiful about preparing the food you are going to eat, whether it be opening a can and pouring a sauce onto pasta or tackling the whole dish right from the beginning. When you set the intention that you are preparing food with love for the people who will be eating it and for yourself it becomes so much more than just a meal. It is our creative essence in action. 

Creativity happens every moment of every day.  When you begin to see this and accept it as part of your life, wonderful things begin to happen. Happy moments sneak in; spontaneous delight occurs; you discover a new passion or uncover a new skill that you had no idea was developing in you. Sometimes you even discover that you are not very good at something. This too is joyous news as it gives you an opportunity to embrace your curiosity and head off in a new direction. Disappointment is a part creative living. Accept it, explore it, silence your inner critic and move on.

PS.. today’s soup was really tasty. I can’t wait to try the recipe again and do a little of my own fine tuning.

It is right here, right now in this very moment that you are living your life. While it can be busy, demanding, stressful and even agonizing at times you have in every moment the opportunity to appreciate life in great ways. A few years back when my my 92 year old mom had just died I was thrown into the midst of the great pain of dealing with the separation of connection that happens when someone you love dies. While this is one of the most awful moments you can experience in your life, there is also lots that the experience can teach us, one of the things that I had begun to notice was how alive I actually was.

It seemed a great paradox to me to be thinking about that but here I was alive, feeling all of this pain from the loss and trying to make sense of a new normal in a world without my mom in it. I felt more depth and more connection to the meaning of life than I had in a very long time. My awareness increased substantially of what being fully present in a moment can mean and that my friends, is a huge aspect of what living life creatively means. You embrace it all, the good, the joyful and the painful. Your life may never be perfect but it is perfect in that moment and you will be able to choose what to do with that joy, that pain, that curiosity and move forward or stay stuck. Me, I like forward motion.  

I hear it often. Someone tells me the reasons (limits) why they can’t try something new or jump into exploring a passion. Any limitation we give ourselves can be rationalized completely and keep you moving on the same old familiar path you have always traveled. There is nothing wrong with that if you are happy on your journey. BUT WHAT IF you are not? WHAT IF YOU CHOOSE to embrace a limitation and explore it. Artist Phil Hansen did exactly that. He gave up on his art once he had developed shaking in his hands preventing him from creating art the way he had done for most of his life. He missed the art so much that he decided to visit a neurologist who diagnosed a neurological impairment. The neurologist simply said “why don’t you embrace the shake”?

This surprising statement spurred Phil Hansen into an amazing exploration and creative journey learning how to embrace this limitation and move beyond it. Many new avenues of creating art opened up to him as he explored beyond the shaking. Besides being a successful artist he has become a sought after speaker inspiring people with his story
Sometimes a limitation is a physical thing like Phil had with his hands but the true limitation was in how he originally thought about this limitation. It was actually in his head where most of our limitations lie. One of the amazing things that Phil did with his exploration is he began to ask himself  questions about how he could make art differently resulting in unique creative explorations.

I have had a similar experience with my musical journey. As a young child I had a very unpleasant experience with my piano teacher. After two years of lessons he finally figured out that I was not reading the music but playing by ear and watching what he was doing. It was easy for me to do that and seemed pointless to read music. Unfortunately he began to tell me loudly over and over that I could not make music that way and had to read the notes. In my eight year old brain, this didn’t seem right because I was playing the music. Eventually I gave up, quitting piano and never really trying to play anything until I was given a Native American Flute at 52 years of age.  I owned a limitation provided to me by this music teacher for over 40 years. Once that flute was in my hand, it set me free of that limitation. I discovered that there are many ways to connect to the joyful experience of creating music and my musical exploration continues.

Limitations seem like an unusual place to harness your creative spirit but once you challenge yourself to embrace the limitation, learning to be creative within the confines of a limitations can change your life. In fact you may even become grateful for a limitation as you travel in vastly different directions than you might have if that limitation had not been in your life.  I know I have. I still don’t read music but have learned to move beyond that and connect to my own musical nature and spread my musical wings.

Terry Mack
Creative Living Catalyst and Coach
Phone: 250-740-0473
www.livinglifecreatively.com

It is a great day when you wake up and get an email notice about yourself. In this case, a business colleague Marilyn Zink, creator of the Herbal Collective and writer for Nanaimo Business News wrote an article about me for the Nanaimo Business News.

Here is the link http://nanaimobusinessnews.ca/2015/09/02/flutes-spark-creativity-for-business-people/

Creativity, allowing creative thought, asking different questions, flipping things upside down, looking at things in new ways are an essential element of solving problems in business and in our personal lives. Challenging yourself creatively and taking action whether it be solving a math puzzle, doing a jigsaw puzzle, zen doodling or simply going for a walk and looking at the trees creates space in your busy brain and allows the 'back burner' to serve you up some of the wonderful connections it makes for you. Make some time for some creative play in your day.

While some people have no problem with starting a new project, many others face challenges with this. I read a quote once that said " if you say you want to be a writer and you don't write then you must not want to be a writer". I am not sure who said this but it has always intrigued me. I use it as guide post when I think I want to try something and then don't. Really when I have truly wanted to do something, I have done it.

This statement makes sense when I think about the reasons I don't start things ( or the reasons I don't finish things).   To start things you have to be curious enough to want to see what will happen and committed enough to follow through. Somewhere in between those two statements lies a trail of objections, self doubts,  all kinds of fears; some you know and some lurking in the background whispering reasons not to start, the busyness of everyday life, and a myriad of easy to respond to distractions instead of starting something you have always wanted to do.

Sometimes starting something requires that a person change how they do things, how they look at things, how they feel about themselves. Sometimes a person is already judging the finished product or desired outcome in a light that prevents one from even considering beginning. It becomes another fleeting idea that you might do someday off in the future when you retire or when you win a million or when the kids have left home.  And so you simply don't start. Sometimes we have so many projects to consider that this keeps us from starting something because it is hard to choose.

You can always learn from something even when you don't start a project and find yourself wondering why? Start asking yourself questions; what do I really want to do, how do I make this priority, where can I get the material, where can I find a teacher, etc. Keep asking questions and the answers and the resources will arrive.

When it comes down to it what is required is a strong  connection to the project to make that leap and get started. We need to connect to the joy of the journey, embrace the experience and dig in. Simply by taking the first steps, silencing your critic and walking the path you can embrace the experience, embrace what learning you can get from it and enjoy the ride.

Accept Your Gifts and Watch the Magic Begin
             ~ Terry Mack – Creative Living Catalyst~

Have you ever asked yourself the question “who am I to have this gift’?   Maybe you haven’t but I have and I know many other people who struggle with accepting and acknowledging their gifts.  In my experience the people asking  this question face many fears and fight many inner demons about their own skills and abilities.

That talent might be creating wonderful new recipes, yet you ask yourself who would read my recipe book? It might be solving an efficiency problem at work but since you are only the new clerk hired on, you don’t feel that anyone would listen. It might be that you have a real passion for growing food in small spaces but it seems like you can’t get people to listen and so the questions start up. Gifts come show up as all kinds of abilities and talents and can appear at any age. Some enter the artistic realm and some are true gifts in creating magic in your business or profession. In my case, I discovered in my early 50’s a real gift for creating music on the Native American Flute and I argued with that gift until a musical friend of mine of First Nations descent advised me to quit arguing with the gift, to accept it and use it. I am forever grateful to him for those words as they helped me embrace my ability and in fact to actively create and preform my music.

If you are struggling with a belief that you are not worthy of this gift start asking yourself some questions. One of the greatest influences in my life has been Wayne Dyer. In one of his books he wrote that when someone out there is asking a question, someone else out there has the answer. By accepting your gift and working with it you maybe answering someone else’s question and solving a problem or becoming a source of inspiration for others.

The really important question to ask yourself is what happens if I accept my gift? Followed by the next question, how should I use this gift? And then what happens if I don’t accept and use this gift?  Perhaps your gift is meant to start you on a journey in which you experience great joy and then have an opportunity to share that and in turn inspire others. Not all gifts have to be the kind that are big enough to save the world. Every gift that shows up in a person’s life is there for a reason.  It may take a while to uncover the reasons but accepting the gift is the starting point.

Accept your gifts and start to make a little magic in your life.

It's Monday! Invite your creative self to come out to play. You might not feel like it but go ahead and do it anyway. Here is the invitation I use in my programs.

INVITATION TO MY CREATIVE SELF
 

invite you to come out and play at least once a day.

I promise to let you help me explore imperfection’. It will teach me things I never knew before.

I will learn one new thing each week to fill up my creative bucket and live my life creatively.

I start my day everyday knowing that I am
curious, playful, full of wonder and joy.

A great boon to living a creative life style is to make a commitment to learning something new everyday. This little habit enriches my life in many ways and often in unexpected ways. I consider this practice part of providing fuel for my creative journey. Recently I added learning the art of Zen doodling into my life explorer list. I have doodled most of my adult life and have a great fondness for triangles. I was in a learning resources store
( Yes I frequent these places along with bookstore, toystores,hardware stores,office supply stores and dollar stores -...they are filled with inspiration,,oops I digress) and found a book entitled Zen Doodling, another one of those magical moments in which what you are thinking about just shows up. That book came home with me and I have been having a great time spending about 15 very peaceful and enjoyable moments everyday with my paper, my pen, and my crayons and just doodle.  It is a very enjoyable way to spend my time. Below is one of my first efforts. Now I am busy thinking of fun ways to use these little drawings, Christmas cards, thank you notes, as images in the books I am writing.

I invite you and  challenge you to make a five minute space in your day and spend some time learning about something that interests you.